homebrew

The remainder of these beers, I tried at the Belgian Beer Cafe Eureka, which I highly recommend to anyone in the Melbourne area. The first three are from the first visit, the rest from the second. All of these were bottle beers except the Kriek.

Visit 1:

Silly Saison: This was the beer I started with on the first trip to Eureka. I wanted to get a better handle on this style, since I will be trying to make one sometime soon, but I still feel like I don’t quite know exactly what a saison is supposed to be like, beyond being blended, being delightful, and being something I’d definitely like to get to know. It was very refreshing and light-bodied 5% farmhouse ale, with some stone-fruitiness and a touch of caramel and malt, though not all that tart like I thought Saison were supposed to be like. Some people seem to find it’s not so much in the style, so maybe it was a bad choice as far as getting to know Saison better… but it was really a good choice in terms of enjoyability.

Orval: This was the recommendation of Adam Brymora, who was spot on in thinking I’d like it. The Orval utterly delicious, with a strong barley richness and above it, a lot of bright banana esters clearly detectable, with just enough sweetness for it to remind me of that Korean liquor I enjoyed in my first year in Iksan, “Seolgukju.” “It’s like barley candy!” I declared, and others agreed. The waitress had a good laugh as we praised and praised the beer to high heaven. By this time, I was having my dinner of rabbit linguini, which was also pretty good.

Chimay Blue: This was the recommendation of a waiter who was asked which beer he’d choose if he were about to be exiled to “beer hell,” which is an apt description of Korea. To be honest, I wasn’t overall very impressed. It was an okay beer, and but wasn’t overall unusual, with none of its particular characteristics standing out for me except for the fact I had no idea at all it was such a strong ale, at 9% alcohol.

Visit 2:

Karmelite Trippel: This beer was an excellent start to a second visit I made to the Belgian Beer pub, with Mark. It was very richly malty and bready, with only a touch of sweetness. I’m pretty sure there was some wheat in it, but I will have to look that up. It was a high-alcohol beer, at around 8%, and while it wasn’t intensely layered (like the Duchess beer, see below) it did have a powerful and engaging distinctiveness. Also, it did not feel like an 8% beer. Not in the slightest. I felt like I could have kept on drinking the stuff for three or four bottles… at least, at first. But it packed a punch, though less then the Duvel. Maybe that’s because of the delicious pork belly I had with it.

Delerium Tremens: This beer was like a dream, and I was delighted to find another bottle at a bottle shop nearby so I could bring one home to share with Miss Jiwaku. I remember it as a bright and rich blond beer, with a subtle but arresting tanginess, but I think I’d rather write about it after having had a chance to try that bottle in my checked luggage. (Assuming it survives the trip to Korea.) It’s a beer to be sipped slowly, with over 8% alcohol and a nice, bright flavor.) I do remember that even just a small sip of Mark’s bottle of the stuff on the first night was a highlight of the evening, so much so that I had a hankering to return back and have a bottle of my own sometime before leaving. Yes, it’s that good.

Supposedly, this beer can be gotten in Fukuoka, according to some guys on my homebrew forum: well, while I would never suggest a trip just for the purpose of getting beer, it certainly doesn’t disincline me to make a jump over there. I got this mainly because the darker brew by the same brewery, Delirium Nocturnum, was sold out. (I think I also asked for a nice brown flanders ale, but they’d run out of that, too.)

Belle-Vue Kriek: This was a little bit like candy, but in a somewhat garish way, which disappointed me as I was hoping that, being as it was draught beer, and not Lindemans’ (which I have tried before) it might be less sweet. I read, in James Sparrow’s bookWild Brews: Culture and Craftsmanship in the Belgian Tradition, that the days of the lambic were long gone, and that many Belgian lambic brewers tend to oversweeten their lambics, framboises, kreiks, and so on — even their gueuzes, which was reason enough, to me, not to bother trying the gueuze. Well, if the lambic available in draught form in Melbourne was any indication, that seems to be correct. The beer was acceptable as a dessert beer, but it didn’t have much sourness, or wheatiness, or indeed much beeriness. My first impression was of a kind of cloying cough-syrupy flavor and sweetness, to be honest, though after it had warmed a bit — I had the last third of the glass, switching with Mark — yeah, I gave him the last third of the Delerium Tremens. I have the feeling it’s a beer for people who say they don’t like beer, especially the beer-hating partners of people (er, I mean, beer-hating girlfriends of guys) who are crazy about Belgian beers, a function which is probably only further served by the low (~4.3%) alcohol content. It was something like a soda pop at first, and while that diminished, it never became anything too much like beer. But I did pick up a few bottles to share with Miss Jiwaku.

Duchess de Bourgogne: This 6.2% alcohol beer was an absolute revelation. It was one in a series of beers I attempted to order, only to be told that they were out of stock. The guy who was working at the bar ended up hearing my explanation of sparging to Mark and realized I was a brewer. Anyway, at some point he ended up discovering that they were not actually out of stock of that beer, and asked if we wanted to try it. Intent on being fashionably late for the Hugo Awards Ceremony — which we failed, as the ceremony was rather late as well — we decided to split a bottle.

At which point we discovered something akin to love for the Duchness. This beer is a very complex brew, and I’m going to paraphrase our explanation of it to Ian here, but only as an encouragement to all who have the chance to dive, wrestle, fight, beg, dance, sing, or pay whatever you must (within reason) to try it.

The beer, which is brewed with both wheat and barley, is quite dark, and when poured it has an arresting sourness in the nose. This is just a hint of the lactic character that kicks in when you taste the beer. The sourness at the front of the mouth (surely inoculated into the beer during its oak cask-aging, though I couldn’t detect much explicit oakiness) is followed by a dark cherry tone as well as the tickling, bright effect of the carbonation. A gentle sweetness follows, not cloying but simply rich and assured. Beneath all of that, there is a constant, slowly crescendoing and then descrescendoing caramel fundament. This is a beer that one sips, not only to savor it but to experience this vivid progression of distinct flavors and elements time and again. We sat for what must have been at least 30-40 minutes sipping it, and talking; often, — and this is a hint of how amazing it was — the subject of the conversation was the beer itself.

I would love to make such a beer, but I note from the menu that it is a blend, and would likely be quite a challenge. I’ll have to look around online to see if anyone has more information on the process, as I would be very, very happy even remotely approaching the beauty and complexity of this one beer. It’s not the sort of thing one wants every day… but on the other hand, for special occasions, it’d be just the thing!

My final comment on the Duchess was that, had I been exposed to such beers as a young man, my life would have turned out very differently, I imagine for the better — not that I am bemoaning my life now, but rather I think I could have learned many things that I had to learn in other ways, often the hard way. One learns something of a life lesson in such beers: in the importance of savoring something to appreciate it; in the importance of a little sourness with the sweet; in the importance of taking the next sip only when one is truly ready for it. I do actually believe a beer like this can make for a more thoughtful, measured, balanced, and savoring approach to life.

Which is why I feel the cultural loss that has followed by the consolidation of brewing in much of the world outside Europe is such a horrible loss: if everyone could have a chance to try a beer like this, I think there would be a lot less chugging of beer in our world. One beer, beautifully crafted, is worth far more than any keg or vat of mediocre, tasteless industrial lager. As Mark commented, regarding the fact that a number of the Trappist beers he has enjoyed and we shared were brewed by monks, “It says a lot for a life of contemplation.”

Which reminds me further: on the flight from Melbourne to Sydney, there was a documentary on — which I didn’t hear since I didn’t bother with the headphones, but I watched it — about craft cheesemakers in Japan. It looked like there was a pretty good variety available, and it was cool to see the process. While I think we’ve lost less in terms of cheese than beer, when I walk down the cheese aisle in my local grocery stores and see two dozen types of “cheese slices” (ie. petrol byproduct sandwich filling) and only one or two of the actual — and overly familiar — cheeses, it saddens me. I really wish I’d gotten a chance to pick up some good cheese, but then again, compared to beers, there’s a stunning variety of cheeses available in Korea. Nothing local, nothing I’ve found particularly mind-blowing, but one isn’t stuck with either slices or nothing.

Perhaps there’s a reason to be thankful for the absence of a local cheese industry, since it’s the protectionism of the beer industry in Korea that ensures so many barriers to greater beer diversity there. And while I am happy enough making beer, making beer and cheese is too much for me to really get into, at least while I am holding down a busy job and trying to get writing done consistently.

One more thing: I saw, for the first time ever, the full-sized bottles of Duvel in a few places in Melbourne. The full-sized bottles being 750 ml of Duvel, which is a rather strong blond beer at 8.5% alcohol. All we ever have in Korea are the little 330ml stubby bottles, but for me that’s more than enough, so I didn’t pick up one of those, but I did get a few different beers: a Delerium Tremens, a Kwak, a bottle of the (non-Belgian) Banana Bread Beer, another Belgian beer the name of which I can’t remember, and a few fruit lambics (a framboise, a kriek, and a fraise).

Well, actually, I could rant about the horror of the meatpie I had at the Aussie Rules football game we went to, but instead I’m going to talk about beer. I had a lot of different beers in Melbourne this week, and many of them are worth talking about:

Carlton Draft: This was plain old terrible stadium lager. Pass it, or pass out. I had one cup and shuddered at the idea of drinking more, but it was the stuff that everyone at the football game was having.

Apple Cider — Bulmer’s? Mangan?: I’m not sure which brands I tried, but both of those names rang a bell. The ciders I had in Melbourne were nice, simple, dry ciders, with a medium carbonation if I remember right. I had a few different ciders, actually, but I’m pretty sure at no point I got to try Strongbow, though it’s the most appealing name. In any case, all the ciders I had in Melbourne were similar and all were refreshing and good.

Fat Yak Pale Ale: Fat Yak’s an APA brewed by the Matilda Bay brewing company in Fremantle. My notes suggest it is serviceable as a session ale, but not something that would blow you away. Perhaps not quite so good that you’d want it as what Charlie Papazian calls your “buddy ale,” but it is head and shoulders above the beer where I live. I had both bottle and draught, and the draught was better, but both were somewhat floral and citrusy, low on the malt and the supposedly high hop flavor wasn’t that high. It seemed a beer that would also be good forr having with a meal, as it got out of the way pretty well. Perhaps that’s one reason I ran across advertisements for deals on a steak and a fat yak at a few places (and heard similar jokes as well).

Alpha Queen Pale Ale: This was at first quite appealing, with a round, rich, deepness to it, and rather closer to a crisp amber in color than some of the pale ales I’ve had. However, after half a glass, when it began to warm up — at which point most ales begin to grow more appealing — it seemed dull to me, and the flavor dropped away. Perhaps I was just a bit tired at the time, but I longed for a little more hop, a little more maltiness. It was, nonetheless, a good experience at the time, and maybe had I been less tired, I would have enjoyed it more. Here’s a video of them brewing the stuff.

Cooper’s Pale Ale: While I can see why this would be seen by many as a good, trustworthy, serviceable pale ale, for me it was just okay, the sort of thing that’s better than the lowest of megabrew grog but still isn’t something I would really go out of my way to get, except of course in Korea.

Mountain Goat Steam Ale: I missed the tour of the brewery Wednesday night, but I had a chance to enjoy some of Mountain Goat’s Steam Ale at a pub around the same time. It was a good solid beer and I was happy to have it. The balance between hops and malts was solid, though I seem to remember something strongly citric and fruity about the palate too. But I think I only had it once, though, and during a conversation that left me with very little memory of the beer itself. I do wish we’d made it to the tour of that brewery, though: I need to make a point of actually making it to brewery tours on future trips, since I can probably learn a thing or two from the brewers and from seeing their equipment.

Beez Neez Honey Wheat Beer: This was a really unusual beer we had as a draught beer at “Cookies.” It had a bright, refreshing palate and was just a little bit sweet, in a welcome and delicious way. Probably not so unsual as honey beers or braggots go, but I found it a refreshing surprise nonetheless. Turns out it’s brewed by the same people who brew the Fat Yak, above — I consider it a lot more successful as a beer.

Little Creatures Bright Ale: I liked this, but didn’t make any notes on why, so I guess I’ll have to just say it was, indeed, a bright, fruity ale and a cheery experience. Very welcome when I did try it.

James Boag’s Draught: This Tasmanian beer was okay, I think, but it pales in comparison to the wonderfulness of the Belgian beers we tried later, so I can’t really sing its praises. I imagine it was probably served too cold, but for my taste, it was just plain background lagery beer. I wouldn’t likely complain too loudly if it were the only option available, but at the same time, I wouldn’t choose it over an unknown either. Indeed, I only had one glass of it before switching over to the Knappstein (see immediately below).

Knappstein Lager: Knappstein was the best beer available at the hotel bar in the convention hotel, the Hilton. It was recommended to me by Jetse de Vries, and turned out to be a staple during our visits there. It was a rather unique beer for a lager, with a residual sweetness and flavor that I and a few others found both unusual and welcome. Knappstein has the unusual and surprising distinction of being a beer brewed at a winery in South Australia, which may account to some degree for its unusual characteristics. I’d love to know more about how the brewer(s) managed to get that flavor out of the malt and hops they used.

The next post will be a review of the Belgian beers I got a chance to savour at a Belgian Beer Cafe in Melbourne.

So, a guy I know at work (hi Dave!) alerted me to the fact that the local Homeplus (a grocery store chain) is holding a “beer festival” which means 5 bottles of a number of imported beers were on sale for for $10-ish. (Probably more like $12, but we think of W10,000 as about $10 here.) He specifically noted that Paulaner Hefeweissen was among those beers, and it turned out to be the only beer worth it, unless you have fond nostalgic reasons to want to drink Singha outside Thailand.

(I figure there’s a reason why Beerlao — the Laotian brew — is making inroads in Thailand, and only wish Beer Lao was available in Korea!)

Anyway, while I was picking up a five-pack, I noticed the Australian beer VB, Victoria Bitter, and I thought, hey, I know that Foster’s Lager is bad — back at Clarion West, our classmate Ian warned us, right? — but they (Aussie beers) can’t ALL be miserable! This one is exported in those little stubby bottles, like the hardass Belgian ale Duvel (hardass because it’s 8.5% if I remember right… just one of those and I’m done for a while).MAybe the association got me comfortable, and I figured, hey, it can’t be that bad!

Man was I wrong. I usually allow myself only one beer a day, to keep the weight and blood pressure in check, and I was kind of on the verge of flushing this stuff but I can’t bring myself to… it’s still better than Korean beer, and being back from a 50-minute cycling binge at the gym, I needed something cold right away. But it was only barely drinkable, and not very enjoyable.

It was funny, though: I ran into a student from the Uni where I teach — never met her before, but she was on staff at the grocery store, giving out sampler cuplets of Miller in front of the “Beer Festival” display, and asked me if I wanted to taste Miller. I told her, in Korean, “Never again if I can help it!” and we got into this hilarious conversation about how crazy people in America in the 1920s (1917-1933, if I remember correctly) had managed to make alcohol illegal, and in the process destroyed the brewing traditions in America, allowing big crappy beer companies to take over, just like in Korea. (And yeah, most of that discussion was in Korean. I’m not so bad when I’m actually trying to talk about something I’m into.) As a nutrition student, she was actually interested enough to keep asking questions and seeking clarifications, and finally asked me which beer is best, so I recommended the hefeweissen.

Anyway, know I know that Ian wasn’t lying. I’m sure there must be some kind of decent beer in Australia, hidden behind the cases of pre-mixed rum-and-cokes and vodka chillers or whatever those horrors were I saw at a drive-through window in Melbourne, but whatever it is, Australia surely doesn’t export it to Korea.

… or anyone interested in beer, brewing, and associated lore. I doubt the whole book will be of interest, but these few pages I typed out are probably at least a little bit interesting if you’re a brewer:

From Roles of the Northern Goddess by Hida Ellis Davidson. London: Routledge, 1998.

(from the Chapter titled “Mistress of the Household” (Pg 138-141):

Yet another important use of water by the women was for brewing ale, the usual drink for all ages at a time when water was often suspect. Its association with a goddess may be seen in ancient Egypt, where beer transformed the goddess Hathor from a wild lioness about to destroy humankind into a benevolent deity (Blecker 1973: 50). She is addressed in a hym as ‘Mistress of Both Lands, Mistress of Bread, who made beer with what her heart created and her hands prepared’, and described as ‘the Lady of Drunkenness, rich in feasts’ (W.J. Darby et. al 1977: 529). The effects of fermented cereals may have been discovered accidentally by women baking bread, and it was women who did the brewing in Ancient Egypt, as may be seen from tomb paintings. The Egyptian method was to work the malt into a dough to convert the starch into maltose, and the women are shown kneading, sieving, and brewing (W.J. Darby et. al 1977: 531). Although the rich drank wine, beer was the general drink in Egypt, and formed an essential part of offerings to the gods.Continue reading →

Yeah, yeah, yeast is not gendered. I’m calling them that because the Belle & Sebastian song “The Boy Done Wrong Again” is in my head.

(I never saw that video before looking it up just now — how gloomy — so no, that’s not a cry for help.)

Anyway… the IPA I bottled a couple of weeks ago has mellowed some, and the carbonation on it is just excellent, excellent. Okay, the head still isn’t staying long — well, maybe the ring around the top, but not a thick creamy head — but that’s okay. It tastes good, good enough to share. I’ll wait a week more to try another bottle of wheat.

In the meantime, I shifted the Coffee Stout again to the empty carboy, to see whether that would affect the ongoing fermentation. I don’t know whether it has yet, of course — the shift was enough to juggle things about, but I do see a small ring of bubbles around the top, very very tiny bubbles. (Don’t sing! Don’t sing it!)

Either way, I’ve gotten the beer off some trub and that’s worth it. It tastes even more coffee-like than before, which is okay because it’s still not horridly overpowering at the moment.

The carboy that is now empty will be put to use for the secondary fermentation of my squash ale, which may or may not have squash flavor after it’s done. (I will be putting in a spice tea into the secondary, though: cinnamon, nutmeg, a little clove, not sure what else.) It’s just soaking in bleach for the night, and I’ll rack it tomorrow morning before I go off and get some stuff done.